Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The Yard Sale

With a third child on the way and a pressing need to clear
some floor space, my wife and I decided to subject ourselves to the most shameful
of all domestic endeavors: the yard sale. The first step was marketing. So we
placed an ad in the local paper and made some yard signs to position at nearby
intersections.

Then, it was time to place an add on Craigslist. Before crafting my own ad, I perused a few of the other items listed under “Yard
Sale.” The idea was to do a little opposition research to see what we would be
competing with on that Saturday. The image below was lifted from the very first
garage sale ad in my immediate area. I am not joking.

And yes, I added the black modesty bar so as not to run afoul
of Blogger’s adult content policy. It seemed unlikely that anyone could remain
that oblivious to their surroundings and still manage to navigate the
Craigslist posting process, so I had to assume it was intentional. Since their
posting was going to generate far more traffic than the handful of poorly—lit photos
of a food processor I had at my disposal, I briefly toyed with idea of contacting
the wonder-crotch twins and asking if they would just sell my items on commission
(and burn anything that remained).

Instead, we forged
ahead and ran the ads on Friday informing the general public that we would be
open at 6 AM on Saturday. So, at 5:30 AM we arose to find a running car in our
driveway helmed by a middle-aged woman on a Bluetooth headset. It became
immediately apparent that she was the advance scouting party for the individual
she was on the phone with because she quickly glanced over each item and gave a
loud verbal assessment of it to the person on the other end.

Moments later a man in his fifties saunters in, makes eye
contact with the woman and tells her to tell her sister Rose that he said hi.
Pausing her narration, she informs he counterpart that Billy said hello and in
the blink of an eye she was gone. Billy hung out and haggled over a used pair
of men’s khaki pants before leaving empty-handed. In the next hour, we were hit
by a handful of other yard sale enthusiasts who willingly traded sleep for the
opportunity to browse our selection of teacher supplies and a gently-used hamster
enclosure.

Fortuitously, there happened to be an estate sale in the
vicinity; so while people were waiting for their assigned time slots, they hung
out at our garage sale and made ridiculous offers on items that we were clearly
not selling. We met one very sweet soft-spoken retiree who purchased a wicker
bench from us. She asked if I could carry the item to her vehicle, which I soon
realized was a small SUV.

After some finagling, I managed to work the majority of the
bench into the trunk but we were unable to close the liftgate. After locating
some spare rope, I managed to tie it down to where she could get it home. As I
did this, we discussed the erosion of common courtesy and the lack of chivalry
in our modern society. Discovering I had laid down my knife inside and needed
it to remove the excess rope, I told her that I needed to run and grab
something to cut the rope with.

Gently protesting, she began digging in her purse while
assuring me that she “probably had something” that could slice through the rope.
Foreseeing myself attempting to saw through a nylon cord with a fingernail file
but unwilling to appear dismissive, I politely waited for her to conclude her
search. Then, in one swift motion, she produced and deployed one of the largest
serrated folding knives I have ever seen. Perceiving my shock, she told me, “Baby,
I grew up on the southside of Chicago so you’re lucky this is all I found in my
purse.” I returned her handbag machete and she sweetly thanked me once again
before driving away.

Following her was not one, but two separate individuals who
breathlessly approached my wife and I asking if we had any “saxophones we
would be willing to sell.” This was perplexing since none of our marketing
material mentioned musical instruments of any kind. Perhaps they were both
participating in a band-camp scavenger-hunt.

Four hours in, we were visited late in the day by an older gentleman
killing time until his estate-sale slot was available. We had a pleasant
conversation and he inquired as to the curious behavior of modern parents
always holding onto their children’s hands in public. Speaking for myself, I
admitted that without physical restraint I worried that my children would
wander in front of a car. He contemplated this for a minute, and then mused at
how much the world had changed since his own youth.

From there, he began to recount an episode of Forensic Files
he had recently seen. The episode featured a young mother who was in public
with her preschooler and turned to get some water from a drinking fountain. By
the time she turned around, the child was gone. He went on to explain that the
child had never been seen again and despite evidence of a grisly demise, a body
was never recovered. Grunting with amazement, he concluded his story by
admitting that he guessed “that might be a pretty good reason to hold a kid’s
hand nowadays…..” He then bid me good-day and drove off.

Finally, after 7 hours, we closed up shop. That night, around
8:30 PM, my daughter and I were sitting on the couch as I got her dressed for
bed. The doorbell rang several times and I peeked through the curtain
half-expected to see Forensic Frank holding a shovel and a bag of lime.
Instead, there was a man I vaguely recognized as a neighbor pushing an infant
in a stroller.

I opened the door and he looked at me and stated matter-of-factly,
“I missed your garage sale.” Unsure exactly how to respond, I said, “Yup.” An
awkward moment of silence passed between us before he asked if I was selling
any clothing for little boys. I told him that we were not and then he asked if
I had anything else for sale. I told him that I was still trying to unload some
furniture. He asked to see it and indicated that he and his wife would be back
to get it. I never heard back and he has waved at me twice since then while I
was out getting my mail. I should have just taken my chances consigning with the Swingers' Sidewalk Sale down the road...